Category: Slow Fashion

what is fashion revolution

This is Fashion Revolution week, and I’ve been struggling with what to write. I’ve expressed some of my views and stated some of the facts on fast versus slow fashion before: buy less, buy quality not quantity, the fashion industry is the second most polluting, the fashion industry is rife with human rights abuses, and on. Today I’ll concentrate on telling you about Fashion Revolution and then telling a slow fashion tale.

What is Fashion Revolution?

Fashion Revolutionis a non-profit global movement with membership in over 90 countries. It was created in 2013 in response to the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. Designers Carry Somers and Orsola de Castro in the UK used the factory collapse to mobilize and forge change in the fashion industry.

from Houston to Canal, destination, Reformation

If you walk from Houston, down Lafayette to Canal Street in Soho, you’ll pass by some six great coffee places, each more sleek and sexy than the next. Stop in any of them and you’ll see lots of young people, dressed in black and looking serious. I love them, they love good coffee in an esthetically pleasing space and so do I.

The architecture along the way is pure Soho: the old, good buildings, with big windows, high ceilings, fire escapes, and a sense of time in timelessness.

Project Just, slow knits

Cashmere, wool, alpaca? What is the difference? Which animal is which and what do you want your sweater made of?

I’m often told that people don’t really know where to go for slow fashion. I understand that: it’s not like there are street signs pointing the way to the Slow Fashion Shop. So here’s a bit of help, a link to a slow fashion organization I follow and believe in, Project JUST. Natalie Grillon and Shahd Alshehail, who started this non-profit dedicated to slow and ethical fashion, say:

“We started JUST because we believe that real change can happen through the accumulation of the thoughtful choices you make every day.”

If you don’t know where to go for slow fashion, maybe your thoughtful choice today could be just becoming acquainted with Project JUST. In the spirit of the holiday season, and with compassion for the different types of animals your sweater may be made of, you can go here to read about knitwear. While you’re at it, click around; there’s a lot to discover on this beautiful site.

Anita

a bathing suit for us

I’ve been thinking about a “bathing suit for us” for two or three years now. In my mind I would design all kinds of possible variations—but I’m not a designer and my designs would just be filed away in the won’t happen file. Then I met Germaine DeNigris of Arkins, a young designer with talent, a collaborative spirit, and an open mind.

Who, I thought, would want to design for women over fifty? Who would want to design edgy, slow and ethical fashion for us?

Germaine did! I was afraid maybe I’d overwhelmed her with my “enthusiasm” and detailed accounts of what was filed away in my won’t happen file, but we settled on that quintessential example of the kind of thing women our age want re-designed for us, the bathing suit.